Thread by @jgeltzer

THREAD

US deaths from COVID-19 will surpass US deaths on 9/11 Sunday or Monday, if this 👇 trajectory holds.

But there are key differences in how to think about responsibility & leadership on the part of the US Presidents who faced these tragedies. /1

https://twitter.com/ryanstruyk/status/1244085357563478016

First, 9/11 was an intelligence failure. But COVID-19 wasn’t—it was a policy failure.

Trump received astonishingly prescient strategic & even tactical intelligence warning about COVID-19. He then failed utterly to act.

That’s not an intelligence but a policy failure. /2

Second, 9/11 was a collective failure of imagination: US leadership failed to internalize & act as if something like 9/11 could happen.

But COVID-19 was an individual failure of imagination: only Trump himself refused to believe what the previous admin & intel warned about. /3

Third, Bush never denied that 9/11 was happening or that it was horrific. Yes, later there were problems about alleged ties to Iraq; but on 9/11 itself Americans didn’t face presidential lies.

Trump has relentlessly lied about COVID-19: its spread, its danger, & US readiness. /4

All of that leaves us in a very different place today. In key ways Bush over-responded to 9/11—that can’t be forgotten.

But Trump is under-responding to COVID-19 even as the worst is yet to come.

That’s unforgivable. It’s dangerous. And it’s scary in the face of tragedy. /END